81–90 of 98 posts
If this interests you, check out https://intelligence.org/rationality-ai-zombies/ .
Also, the strange conviction that logic just stopped changing in the 1800's.
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It is possible, at least in principle, to transition to only using solar for example. Musk gave the example, when unveiling the Powerwall, that to power the whole of the US would only require the whole Texas Panhandle to be covered in panels 25% efficient. I remember doing the calculation even with the current 15% efficiency and it came out that if each person has something like 9 m^2 of solar panels on their roof, t…
> the whole of the US would only require the whole Texas Panhandle to be covered in panels 25% efficient Are we building Dyson spheres next? I believe largish orders of mass-market solar panels (currently ~15% efficient, as you mentioned) are about $10/sq ft, but let's make that $5 for sake of argument. So $218k for one acre. The Texas Panhandle is 16.6 million acres. So assuming solar becomes nearly twice as efficie…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is possible, at least in principle, to transition to only using solar for example. Musk gave the example, when unveiling the Powerwall, that to power the whole of the US would only require the whole Texas Panhandle to be covered in panels 25% efficient. I remember doing the calculation even with the current 15% efficiency and it came out that if each person has something like 9 m^2 of solar panels on their roof, t…
> the whole of the US would only require the whole Texas Panhandle to be covered in panels 25% efficient Are we building Dyson spheres next? I believe largish orders of mass-market solar panels (currently ~15% efficient, as you mentioned) are about $10/sq ft, but let's make that $5 for sake of argument. So $218k for one acre. The Texas Panhandle is 16.6 million acres. So assuming solar becomes nearly twice as efficie…
Besides, it is somewhat meaningless to look at the price of solar panels without a reference. As I stated above, I have no idea how to estimate the cost of nuclear. I also don't know if the new kind of reactor (like traveling wave reactors) are anything more than a concept (it seems like breeder reactors are pretty much at the level of prototypes today).
I think the important point is what the price difference is rather than whether a one-time purchase of solar panels would cost an amount to large to fit in one's wallet.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the whole of the US would only require the whole Texas Panhandle to be covered in panels 25% efficient Are we building Dyson spheres next? I believe largish orders of mass-market solar panels (currently ~15% efficient, as you mentioned) are about $10/sq ft, but let's make that $5 for sake of argument. So $218k for one acre. The Texas Panhandle is 16.6 million acres. So assuming solar becomes nearly twice as efficie…
3.6 trillions is a lot of money if you intend to bulk buy all of it at once today, but comparatively less over, say, 10 years. US GDP is around 18 trillion/year, 2% of the GDP is a lot, but it's certainly realizable. Besides, it is somewhat meaningless to look at the price of solar panels without a reference. As I stated above, I have no idea how to estimate the cost of nuclear. I also don't know if the new kind of r…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the whole of the US would only require the whole Texas Panhandle to be covered in panels 25% efficient Are we building Dyson spheres next? I believe largish orders of mass-market solar panels (currently ~15% efficient, as you mentioned) are about $10/sq ft, but let's make that $5 for sake of argument. So $218k for one acre. The Texas Panhandle is 16.6 million acres. So assuming solar becomes nearly twice as efficie…
3.6 trillions is a lot of money if you intend to bulk buy all of it at once today, but comparatively less over, say, 10 years. US GDP is around 18 trillion/year, 2% of the GDP is a lot, but it's certainly realizable. Besides, it is somewhat meaningless to look at the price of solar panels without a reference. As I stated above, I have no idea how to estimate the cost of nuclear. I also don't know if the new kind of r…
Elon chose that particular spot because the economic of solar is geography dependent. The infrastructure costs of distributing 100% solar will be astronomical.
I think you could pat yourself on the back if you figured out how to make it work for only 20x the cost of just the panels.
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> As I stated above, I have no idea how to estimate the cost of nuclear
There is extensive data about nuclear costs, both estimated and empirical.
In 2010, the U.S. Energy Information Administration estimated total captial costs for nuclear power at $5.4k per kW. http://www.eia.gov/oiaf/beck_plantcosts/index.html (This is a rather safe estimate -- the EIA reported inflation-adjusted costs for actual, real-life plants build in the 1960s was $1.5k per kW. But I'll use the higher estimate.)
The U.S. used 3.9 trillion kWh last year, twenty percent of which is already nuclear. So that's $1.9 trillion of capital for 100% of U.S. electricity to come from nuclear.
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At this point, coal makes the most economic sense of course. And the U.S. has enough for the next couple centuries.
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Forget reason, rely only on intuition, and there will be no 'working' or 'not working'. Stop thinking and end your problems. (Tao Te Ching, chapter 20) Isn't that what we are all after, having no problems? Is there any point in time where in reality you are more than sensory signals entering your consciousness? Is everything not a mere an illusion of your mind? Letting intuition figuring everything out is effortless,…
Reason will give you the math to build the pyramids. Irrationality will make you think it is a good idea.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
3.6 trillions is a lot of money if you intend to bulk buy all of it at once today, but comparatively less over, say, 10 years. US GDP is around 18 trillion/year, 2% of the GDP is a lot, but it's certainly realizable. Besides, it is somewhat meaningless to look at the price of solar panels without a reference. As I stated above, I have no idea how to estimate the cost of nuclear. I also don't know if the new kind of r…
$3.6 trillion is only a portion of just the materials cost. It's like the price of lumber, as compared to the total cost of building a house. Elon chose that particular spot because the economic of solar is geography dependent. The infrastructure costs of distributing 100% solar will be astronomical. I think you could pat yourself on the back if you figured out how to make it work for only 20x the cost of just the pa…
Matches what I found here: http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/capitalcost/xls/table1.xls (5.530$/kW) (page with full report here: http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/capitalcost/, release date 2013)
Thing is that it is literally more expensive than photovoltaic at around 4k$/kW (same source). Even the Operation and Maintenance is 5 times as expensive (~93$ vs ~26$).
I must say that I did not expect the evidence to be in my favour here (as evidenced by my initial comment).
> Elon chose that particular spot because the economic of solar is geography dependent.
Yes, the Sun hits more at lower latitude: http://energy.gov/maps/solar-energy-potential
> The infrastructure costs of distributing 100% solar will be astronomical.
> I think you could pat yourself on the back if you figured out how to make it work for only 20x the cost of just the panels.
What's nice about solar is that it can be very localized (with the efficiency loss described above).
I agree that the costs of distributing all the power required for the whole of the US from the Panhandle would require… interesting, distribution architecture.
Going by the solar potential map, I guesstimate the Panhandle average to be about 525 Wh/ft^2/day and the worst parts of Washington and Oregon to be at about 350 Wh/ft^2/day. So let's assume the national average to be 440 and so assume that we need about 120% the panels needed before. Actually, let's bump that up to 140% just because my number is rather rough and the population of the US is mostly on the coasts.
Now, what do you expect the other costs to be? Probably batteries. Going by somewhat sketchy graph on the Internet, I'll approximate the energy use as constant throughout the day, with a 2X peak offset just after the sun sets. So let's assume that one third of the energy needed through the day doesn't need to be stored at all, it's used as it's generated.
Going by: http://www.eia.gov/beta/MER/index.cfm?tbl=T02.01#/?f=A&start... the US used about 100000 trillion BTU => 100E31E12 BTU 0.293071 Wh/BTU = 29 quadrillion Wh AKA 30 trillion kWh (10 times your figure for some reason).
So 30E12 kWh * 2/3 * 1/365 = 53E9 kWh of storage needed
Now, Tesla sells the Powerpack for about 2.6 M$/4MWh. 53E9 kWh * 2.6 M$/4E3 kWh = 34.5E12 $ AKA 34 trillion $.
I don't know what the economies of scale would look like on producing 530 million powerpacks, but I'm pretty sure it would make the cost substantially lower (besides, those numbers are not for bulk orders).
As for panels, going by your numbers, I get 10$/ft^2 = 10$ * (3.3 ft/m)^2 = 109 $/m^2. Assuming 15% efficient panels and assuming 420 Wh/ft^2/day * 0.15 = 686 Wh/m^2/day. So 109 $/m^2 / .686 kWh/m^2 = 159 $/kWh
30E12 kWh * 159 $/kWh = 4.77E15 AKA 4.77 quadrillion $.
30E12 kWh / 36524 h 4000$/kW = 13 trillion $, so something is off.
Indeed, your 10$/ft^2 is way off, it is for small residential installations: http://solar-power-now.com/solar-panel-cost-per-square-foot/
Now, I don't know what to think of the ~350-fold price reduction for really large installation, but it seems sensible going by electronics bulk pricing.
Assuming a more conservative 10-fold reduction for the price of batteries, we'd get 13+3.4 trillion $ = 16.4 trillion $.
Going by the EIA report, nuclear would be about 5/4 the cost/kW of solar (presumably without storage), which is about on par with the price of storage + solar: (13+3.4)/13 ≈ 5/4
> The U.S. used 3.9 trillion kWh last year, twenty percent of which is already nuclear. So that's $1.9 trillion of capital for 100% of U.S. electricity to come from nuclear.
Yes, but they may be at the end of their life: http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=228&t=21
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At any rate, I don't have much of an issue with nuclear, at least the newer breeder designs since breeders produce very little waste and the new designs are presumably very safe. But obviously, all costs being equal (assuming no error in my calculations) I'm 100% in favour of renewables over nuclear. Renewables don't have the international concerns linked with exporting nuclear reactor technology for one and that's a serious drawback of nuclear honestly.
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As you yourself pointed out, it the idea that A = !B is an assumption. It's not supported by anything on the page whatsoever. In fact, it's explicitly rejected by what's on the page. Simply reading and reasoning about the answers, which are completely unambiguous, would lead one to conclude that B is a subset of A. Therefore it must be false that A = !B. There's no mind reading necessary, only rational thought. Liste…
Language is naturally ambiguous and dependent on context. It's not lack of rationality that causes people to interpret questions in different ways. You can only show lack of rationality in a situation like this if they provide the wrong answer and understand the question.
The point is that people aren't often willing to put in that effort, so they default to intuition. What's more, they might not even realize they're doing this.
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Language is naturally ambiguous and dependent on context. It's not lack of rationality that causes people to interpret questions in different ways. You can only show lack of rationality in a situation like this if they provide the wrong answer and understand the question.
The point isn't that people aren't capable of being rational. If they read the question carefully and think hard about it, of course they'll be able to figure it out. But that takes a lot of conscious effort. The point is that people aren't often willing to put in that effort, so they default to intuition. What's more, they might not even realize they're doing this.
Compare https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12524799 this comment, where the kids already know which pile has more candy, but they don't understand what the weirdly-formatted question is asking.
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The point isn't that people aren't capable of being rational. If they read the question carefully and think hard about it, of course they'll be able to figure it out. But that takes a lot of conscious effort. The point is that people aren't often willing to put in that effort, so they default to intuition. What's more, they might not even realize they're doing this.
But there is a huge difference between 'intuition about conversation' and 'intuition about the state of reality'. The former is not tied to rationality as much as practice at fighting through obtuse language. The latter is much closer to telling you whether people are thinking rationally by default. Compare https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12524799 this comment, where the kids already know which pile has more can…
I object to the characterization of these experiments as "communicating badly" or relying on "obtuse language". The questions asked in both experiments are exceedingly straightforward and unambiguous. If "which is longer" and "which is more likely to be true" fall below the bar for designating a question as confusing, then so does every other question imaginable.
Conversation is an integral part of the "real world", and it's almost always far more ambiguous than examples we're examining. Yet we're still expected to parse and decipher conversation in order to survive in society: to thrive at your job, to vote for the best candidate, to get through school, etc.
It's in no way useful to design an experiment that attempts to avoid conversation in a world that runs on conversation. There exist people who can consistently pick the correct answer in all of these experiments, no matter how the question is worded. And there exist people who will get it wrong unless the question is worded perfectly. Who is more rational? Who is better at grasping "the state of reality", as you put it? Who would you rather have on your team at work?